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I. Summary

A pilgrimage of Saudi Shia to Medina in February 2009 to
observe the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad's death led to clashes between
the pilgrims and Saudi security forces. Those forces included the non-uniformed
religious police, which is staunchly Sunni and opposed to what they consider
the idolatrous innovations of Shia rituals of commemorating special holidays
and making visits to graves. The immediate cause of the Medina clashes was the
filming on February 20 of Shia women pilgrims by a man believed to belong to
the religious police. The clashes continued in the area of the Baqi' cemetery
in Medina over a five-day period, and resulted in the arrest of tens of
pilgrims. The Medina clashes and subsequent events in the Eastern Province
stoked the sharpest manifestation of long-standing sectarian tensions that the
kingdom has experienced in years.

The incidents at the Baqi' cemetery reflected in part these
long-standing tensions, but they were also an outlet for anger among the Shia
(who are 10-15 percent of the population) over systematic discrimination at the
hands of the government in education, the justice system, and, especially,
religious freedom. They also face exclusion in government employment. The
government for its part reacted with repressive measures of arrest and a
clampdown on public airing of Shia grievances rather than seeking dialogue to
prevent further conflict.

In late February and early March largely peaceful
demonstrations in solidarity with those arrested in the Medina clashes took
place in the heavily Shia Eastern Province, producing a crackdown by the
security forces. The kingdom does not allow any form of demonstrations, even
peaceful ones. A Shia preacher in 'Awwamiyya known for his vocal opposition to
Saudi policies, Nimr al-Nimr, suggested in a Friday sermon on March 13 that his
coreligionists consider secession from Saudi Arabia if their rights were not
respected. The security forces' hunt for al-Nimr, who went into hiding,
resulted in further Shia protests supporting the preacher, and a further
crackdown.

Security officers arrested more than 50 people in the
Eastern Province, including children, for participating in the demonstrations.
More than two dozen were detained until July 1. Royal amnesties for detainees,
a halt to arbitrary arrests after March, and pronouncement of loyalty to the
state by moderate Shia helped deescalate the situation in the following months.

Nevertheless, underlying discrimination has risen. Since the
February-March events, authorities have intensified ongoing restrictions on
Shia communal life. Since 2008 the authorities have arrested and threatened the
owners of Shia private communal prayer halls in Khobar to extract pledges to
close them. Since 2001 the authorities in Ahsa' have imposed extrajudicial
prison sentences on leaders of communal prayers and on persons selling articles
used in Shia religious ceremonies such as `Ashura' and Qarqi'un, which remain
prohibited in many Saudi Shia communities.

These repressive measures have fueled a lingering sentiment
of discrimination among Shia. They observe how the government tolerates
inflammatory and intolerant statements by Saudi Sunni clerics directed toward
the Shia, while preventing the Shia even from simple acts of religious worship
such as praying together. Underlying state discrimination against Shia includes
a justice system based on religious law that follows only Sunni
interpretations, and an education system that excludes Shia from teaching
religion, and Shia children from learning about their Islamic creed. The
sectarian divide, and Saudi state and Sunni community hostility and suspicion
toward Saudi Shia, reflects not just religious intolerance but also political
tensions arising from the elevated profile of Shia politics in the broader
region, from Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon to Shia dominance over Iraqi politics
and fears over the designs by Shia-dominated Iran for the Shia population of
the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, as crown prince in 2003,
initiated National Dialogues between the Shia and Sunnis, among others, but
little has come of them. In 2008 the king led the call for tolerance between
world religions at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, but neglected
to promote tolerance for Saudi Arabia's Shia minority at home.

The Saudi government should urgently address the underlying
reasons for sectarian tension, and end systematic discrimination against the
Shia.

Recommendations
to the Government of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia should establish:

A commission of investigation, under the governmental Human
Rights Commission and with participation from the Bureau of Investigation and
Public Prosecutions, to investigate the circumstances leading to acts of violence
by protestors and by security officials from February 20 to 24 around the area
of the Baqi' cemetery in Medina. It should further investigate the lawfulness
of arrests and detention arising from the events in Medina and from the
February and March protests in Safwa, 'Awwamiyya, and Qatif. It should
prosecute those suspected to be involved in unlawful acts of violence, and
discipline officials who ordered or carried out arbitrary arrests. The
commission should hear eyewitnesses to the events and make its findings public,
and should have the power to order compensation to be paid to those who
suffered unlawful violence or detention at the hands of state authorities.

A commission of equal citizenship, under the National Dialogue
Center, and with a wide participation, including members of the Shura Council,
the Human Rights Commission and the National Society for Human Rights, elected
local councilors, and tribal, religious and community leaders of the Eastern
Province. The Commission should consider recommending a national institution on
discrimination, as suggested by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination
of Racial Discrimination. The Commission should explore ways to:

Protect freedom of worship for the Shia, especially in areas with
a high Shia population, including freedom in the building and upkeep of mosques
and husseiniyyas, printing, importing, and distribution of religious
material, and the holding of public religious celebrations.

Protect the freedom for parents to ensure their children receive
a religious education in accordance with their beliefs, and for children to be
able to choose and practice their own religion. This should include a right at
school to abstain from or opt out of Sunni religious instruction that is
contrary to Shia beliefs, and the right, wherever possible (and at a minimum in
all areas where Shia form a significant percentage of the population), to
receive religious instruction according to Shia beliefs on par with what Sunni
pupils receive. Exercise of that right should entail allowing Shia to teach
religion in schools.

Ensure equality in employment and access to institutions of
higher learning, including in the security services, high ministerial
positions, local, provincial and the Shura Council, and military academies.

Ensure equal
access to justice, including by mandating that all persons are equal before the
law regardless of their sectarian identity, and that qualified Shia jurists can
work as judges in regular courts, especially in areas with a high Shia population.

A commission on holy places, to carry forward the Mekka June 2008
interfaith initiative organized by the Muslim World League, to explore ways to
share space for religious worship in Mekka and Medina among adherents of
different Muslim creeds while respecting Saudi Arabia's dominant religious
practices. The commission should pay special attention to diverse staffing and
appropriate training for security guards and officials of the Commission to
Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice operating in such shared space for worship.

Saudi Arabia should engage its high religious officials,
such as the office of the mufti, the Council for Senior Religious Scholars, and
the Ministry for Islamic Affairs, Preaching, and Religious Guidance to rebut
religiously intolerant speech by officials and other influential voices.

Methodology

Saudi authorities have not granted Human Rights Watch access
to freely conduct in-country research since a November-December 2006 research
mission to the kingdom. Human Rights Watch staff visiting in May 2007, March
2008, and May 2009 remained tightly circumscribed in their official and private
meetings.

Human Rights Watch researchers visited the Eastern Province
in February and December 2006, meeting with roughly two dozen Shia
intellectuals and victims of human rights abuses. We also met with Eastern
Province Shia in Bahrain in December 2007, and with Medina Shia in Riyadh in
May 2007.

Due to the government-imposed barriers preventing Human
Rights Watch from conducting in-country research since 2006, for its more
up-to-date information this report relies on telephone interviews with Saudi
Shia human rights activists and ordinary Saudi Shia who participated in the
Medina protests and clashes or in the Safwa or 'Awwamiyya protests, and with religious
leaders chiefly in Khobar and Ahsa', as well as on telephone interviews and
email communications with Saudi Sunni and Shia human rights activists living in
the Eastern Province. To protect those we interviewed from retaliation, we have
withheld names or used pseudonyms for our sources, unless they indicated a
willingness to be named.

On August 26, 2009, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the
Saudi government enquiring about any investigations into the Baqi' cemetery
events and the Eastern Province protests and arrests, and what steps the
kingdom had taken to address discrimination in religious worship, education,
employment, and the justice system. As of September 3, we had not received a
reply.

II. The
Shia under Saudi Rule

The population of Saudi Arabia is overwhelmingly Sunni
Muslim, and Wahhabism is the official religion of the kingdom. Adherents of the
Twelver Shia creed in the kingdom live predominantly in the Eastern Province,
and in Medina, home to the so-called Nakhawila.

Wahhabi dominance dates back more than two-and-a-half
centuries. In 1744 the itinerant and modernizing preacher Muhammad bin Abd
al-Wahhab found refuge near today's Riyadh with local chief Muhammad bin Sa'ud.
They agreed to make common cause, with Abd al-Wahhab giving the ruler religious
legitimacy, especially to expand his realm, and Ibn Sa'ud granting Abd
al-Wahhab freedom to rid the inhabitants of what he saw as centuries of sinful
innovations and to return them to the path of true Islam. By 1792 the Saudis
had conquered the traditionally Shia areas of Qatif and Ahsa', which they
periodically contested with the Ottomans for over a century thereafter. In 1913
the Ottomans handed over the region to advancing troops of Abd al-'Aziz bin
Sa'ud, the founder of the modern kingdom. King Abd al-'Aziz
(who died in 1953) according to historians "despised the Shiites," but found
himself caught between giving in to "the hatred that the Wahhabi 'ulama'
have consistently shown toward Shiism," and the realities of the Shiite areas'
high population not being easily subdued without large numbers of troops, and
the benefits of taxing Shia financial resources for Saudi expansionism, in
addition to the need to accommodate international diplomacy, especially British
interests in the Gulf.[1] Nevertheless, the new
Saudi state initially allowed "Wahhabi zealots [to] implement ... a repressive
religious policy" toward the Shia,[2] including demands of
forced conversion.[3]When conflict arose between the Wahhabi
zealous fighting force, the Ikhwan, and the king, the Ikhwan were crushed and
disbanded in 1930, and repression of the Shia eased.[4]

Following the discovery of oil in the 1930s in what is now
the Eastern Province, and the inclusion of Shia among employees of ARAMCO, the
Saudi oil company, the focus of Shia demands shifted toward greater rights for
workers and greater infrastructure investment in their areas.[5]
These demands were at the heart of Shiite protests in the "intifada of 1400," a
local uprising during ceremonies marking `Ashura' (a major Shia holiday) in
1979,[6]
in which some Saudi Shia went further, voicing demands for independence.[7]
The 1979 Islamic revolution in Shia-dominated Iran both emboldened Saudi Shia
(their public celebration of `Ashura' that year being one example), and contributed
to the Saudi government increasing support for propagating Sunni Islamic
messages in public and in the education system.[8] These
messages followed the Saudi Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, which frequently
portrays Shia as unbelievers.[9]

An incident of violence occurred during the Muslim annual
pilgrimage to Mekka in 1987, when Iranian and Saudi Shia pilgrims staged a
demonstration against US and Israeli policies which turned violent and resulted
in the deaths of 400 pilgrims.[10]

In the 1980s some Saudi Shia emigrated to escape growing
repression at home and expressed their views, including criticisms of the
government, through the publication of books and magazines.[11]
In 1993 the Saudi government came to an understanding with representatives of
the émigré Shia opposition whereby they would cease their publications, return
to the kingdom, and become a loyal constituency. In return, the authorities
promised to release political prisoners, lift travel bans on activists, curb
anti-Shia teachings in the educational system, and work toward greater equality
between Shia and Sunnis, especially in employment. Some Shia activists did
return, but others remained abroad because they were distrustful that the
government would honor its promises or because the compromise did not go far
enough in their eyes. The government released some political prisoners and
lifted travel bans, but made no discernible progress toward curbing intolerant
statements and discrimination.[12]

In 1995 the Saudi government arrested a large number of Shia
in the Eastern Province on suspicion of involvement in the unrest taking place
in neighboring Bahrain, whose population is majority Shia but whose government
is Sunni-dominated.[13] Saudi authorities again
arrested scores of Eastern Province Shia following the Khobar bombings in June
1996, which killed 19 US soldiers. Authorities continue to hold nine Shia
without trial in connection with the bombings following their arrests between
1996 and 1999.[14]

Since 2006, tensions between Shia and Sunni Saudis have
increased, fuelled in part by developments in Iraq and the perceived growth of
Iranian influence in the region.[15] During the war between
Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah in July and August 2006, the government
suppressed demonstrations by Sunnis as well as Shia in solidarity with
Lebanon's Shia, and arrested Shia in the Eastern Province who put pictures or
symbols of Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah, its leader, in their cars or on
their mobile phones.[16] Following the appearance
of a video showing the execution of deposed president Saddam Hussein of Iraq in
December 2006, with officials of the Shia-led Iraqi government taunting Saddam,
media reports suggest some Sunnis in Saudi Arabia blamed the Shia in general,
including Saudi Shia, for oppressing Iraqi Sunnis.[17]

Before external factors increased domestic tension between
Sunnis and Shia in Saudi Arabia, the authorities had taken some measures to
promote respect for the Shia religious minority. Then-Crown Prince Abdullah in
2003 began a series of National Dialogues, which brought together for the first
time leading Saudi Shia and Sunni religious figures. Furthermore, the
authorities since 2005 eased the prohibition on festivities surrounding Ashura,
allowing more public processions in Qatif (see also chapter III). Between
February and April 2005 the authorities conducted municipal elections to half
the seats of municipal councils, the first elections in most parts of the
kingdom, and did not interfere when Shia won all six contested seats in Qatif,
and five out of six in Ahsa'.[18]

Even attempts to bridge Sunni-Shia divides sometimes face
government sanction. In November 2006 the government pressured Shia religious
scholars to disband a group they had formed to attempt, together with the
national astronomical society, to unify diverse theological methods to detect
the arrival of the new moon. The Islamic calendar is based on the lunar year,
and differences over dating the new moon, which heralds the start of religious
holidays, is a matter of frequent Sunni-Shia contention.[20]
On February 4, 2007, the Saudi secret police arrested Mukhlif bin Dahham
al-Shammari, a Sunni human rights activist working toward greater Shia-Sunni
understanding, and detained him for three months for having visited Shaikh
Hasan al-Saffar, the top Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia.[21]

III. Underlying Discrimination

Eastern Province Shia have accused the government for three
decades of discriminating against them in two basic ways. First, they claim
that the government is denying them religious and cultural space that they
allow to Sunnis. Second, many Shia claim that the government discriminates
against them in education, the administration of justice, and in employment.

The events since February 2009 discussed in the following
chapters highlight the severe restrictions on freedom of religion for Saudi
Shia. But the pattern of repression has a longer recent history. Government
offices ban Shia religious observations and policemen prevent Shia from
enjoying the same rights of worship as Sunnis do. Having banned `Ashura' processions
since taking control of what is now the Eastern Province in 1913, Saudi
authorities since 2005 have allowed larger processions in Qatif, though none
has been allowed in Ahsa'. The authorities recently built a large Sunni mosque
in overwhelmingly Shia Qatif, while continuing to greatly restrict permits for
Shia to build or renovate mosques (refusal extends to projects that would not
be seeking financial support from the state, something that Sunni mosque
projects frequently enjoy).[22]

The recent history of discrimination against the Shia
includes the way in which official figures portray and treat them as persons of
dubious faith, and hence, as second class citizens. The former grand mufti of
Saudi Arabia, Shaikh Abd al-Aziz bin Baz, in 1993 declared the Shia Ramadhan
festival of Qarqi'un a heretical "innovation."[23] The
force of such religious pronouncements, and their consequences for denying Shia
their religious freedom, can be seen in the actions by a local education
official in the Eastern Province: Ahmad Bil-Ghanaim, the director of education
in Ahsa', in September 2007 issued a directive to all schools to ban all
Qarqi'un festivities.[24]

Pronouncements against the Shia as
unbelievers contribute to what are regular restrictions the state imposes on
their freedom to worship in spaces shared with Sunni worshipers, such as Mekka
and Medina. For example, on August 5, 2007, Sayed AlQazwini, an American Shia,
was praying in the Grand Mosque in Mekka when a member of the "religious police
... was attacking the belief system of the Shia, stating that they are
considered infidels ... that the Shia worship the dead [and] stones and rocks,"
he told the Al-Khoei foundation, a Shia institution named after a revered
Iranian Shia scholar who lived in Iraq. The religious policeman told AlQazwini that
"[y]ou are all cowards and we will purify the holy mosque from the Shia" before
arresting him, AlQazwini said.[25] In
November 2005 the religious police briefly arrested an 82-year-old Saudi
Ismaili man in Medina for carrying an Ismaili prayer book.[26]
In 2001, the religious police arrested Turki al-Turki, a Saudi Shia from Tarut
in the Eastern Province, as he exited the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad in
Medina, later charging him with insulting the companions of the Prophet. A
Sunni judge in Qatif later convicted al-Turki of that charge, handing down a
suspended sentence of 350 lashes and eight months in prison. In October 2006,
as Shia-Sunni tension rose, the Ministry of Education suspended al-Turki, a
teacher, from his work, and police arrested him in February 2007 to enforce the
sentence.[27] The Saudi Shia news
website Rasid reported on March 5, 2009, that members of the Commission
for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV, commonly
referred to as the religious police) had obstructed Shia in their religious
worship in Medina.[28]

Shia are not allowed to teach religion or history in
schools.[29] Among the episodes of
discrimination and harassment against Shia students reported to Human Rights
Watch, in 2006 Sunni teachers in schools in Ahsa' called Shia students
"unbelievers" on several occasions (students recorded such episodes on their
cellphones);[30] in April that year a
Shia student in Riyadh alleged that religious policemen arrested her following
an argument she had about differences in Sunni and Shia Islam with a fellow
Sunni student;[31] and in March 2008 an
Ismaili in Riyadh recounted how a Sunni teacher had called his daughter an
unbeliever and expelled her from his class.[32] In
another egregious incident that was officially documented, a school in Ahsa' on
June 4, 2007, expelled for one year 15-year-old Khadija al-Sa'id for
"trivializing any part of God's word or any Islamic ritual," for having made
allegedly insulting remarks about the Prophet Muhammad.[33]

Shia face discrimination in the judiciary, too, ranging from
denial of access to justice to arbitrary arrests and discriminatory verdicts.
In February 2006 a judge in Khobar told a Shia worker whose Sunni boss had
asked him to be a witness to his child's wedding that he refused to accept him
as a witness because of his Shia creed.[34] In June
2009 a Sunni judge in Qatif sentenced a Shia man to three months in prison and
400 lashes for cursing God, based on allegations made by the man's Sunni
coworker; the judge used disparaging language about the Shia while sentencing
this man.[35] Shia to whom Human
Rights Watch has spoken over the past four years almost universally allege (and
many Sunnis aware of the situation of Shia agree) that false claims against
Shia based on religiously motivated charges, such as cursing God, the Prophet,
or his companions, are a staple of discriminatory acts against Shia.[36]

Saudi authorities at the Jordanian-Saudi border in Quraiyat
in late 2008 detained Wafiqat al-Hazza', a Shia woman from Ahsa', as she was
returning from Syria, for having a Shia prayer book in her possession. A court
later sentenced her to six months for witchcraft and sorcery, but even her
trial (the date of which is not clear) only took place after the intervention
of the Saudi Human Rights Commission which started a judicial review of her
case. She was released on June 23, 2009.[37]

Discrimination against Shia in the administration of justice
is not limited to individual cases, but is built into the justice system. There
are no Shia judges except for seven judges serving three Shia courts-two first
instance courts in Qatif and Ahsa', and an appeals court, also in Qatif.
However, their jurisdiction is limited to personal status, inheritance, and
endowments cases. In August 2005 a new royal decree significantly curtailed the
already limited jurisdiction of the two Shia first instance courts, giving
Sunni courts the authority to supervise the Shia courts and take up cases
pending there.[38] When, in September 2007,
fears by the judges in the Shia courts that Sunni courts would use this
provision to take over cases previously under Shia court jurisdiction on issues
such as land inheritance became a reality, the Shia judges announced their
intention to resign should amendments not be introduced. Following a brief
period of suspension of work, they resumed their work without achieving any
concessions.[39] In other provisions of
the new decree, only the regular Sunni courts would have jurisdiction over
cases involving a dispute between two parties,[40] and if
one of the parties even in a non-disputed case was not a Shia, the Sunni courts
would automatically have jurisdiction.[41]

State discrimination against the Shia stems from the
official Wahhabi creed and is manifest in the state's religiously infused
education system, state sponsorship of official religious worship, and a
judiciary which draws its legitimacy from Sunni Wahhabism. It is this umbrella
of religiously legitimized or religion-infused state institutions under which
prominent Islamic thinkers and clerics, often state officials, continue to
propagate incitement to hostility against the Shia. The Saudi government
tolerates such speech, sometimes even by silencing its critics:[42]
the government arrested Shia cleric Shaikh Tawfiq al-'Amir on June 22, 2008,
after he spoke out in a sermon he gave in Hofuf on June 11 against a May 30
statement signed by 22 prominent Saudi Wahhabi clerics, including Abdullah bin
Jibrin, Abd al-Rahman al-Barrak, and Nasir al-'Umar, in which they called the
"Shia sect an evil among the sects of the Islamic nation, and the greatest
enemy and deceivers of the Sunni people."[43] Of the
22 signatories, 11 are current government officials and 6 are former government
officials.[44]
Early in 2008 another hardline cleric, Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'd, prohibited
selling real estate to Shia in a fatwa, because "therein lies assistance to the
[Shia] in bringing out their corrupt religion and their bad creed."[45]
There was no official response to these well-publicized incidents.[46]

King Abdullah's large delegation to the interfaith gathering
in New York in November 2008, which he had initiated, reportedly contained no
Saudi Shia.[47] In February 2009 King
Abdullah reshuffled the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, the most
authoritative voice on interpreting state religious and judicial doctrine,
appointing for the first time scholars versed in traditions other than the
Hanbali school of jurisprudence adhered to by Wahhabi Sunnis. However, he
appointed no Shia of the Ja'fari school followed by Shia in the Eastern
Province or of any other Shia schools, dashing the hopes of Shia for greater
inclusion in religio-juridical affairs of the country.[48]

State practices of discrimination and exclusion toward Shia
have created a sentiment of unequal citizenship. Few if any Shia manage to
enroll in military training colleges or serve in the army, although Prince
Khalid bin Sultan, deputy minister of defense, in June 2009 promised the Shia
that there were no official obstacles to their enrollment.[49]
There are no Shia ministers or high-ranking diplomats. Whether the barriers are
overtly from the side of the government, or reflect a lack of Shia candidates
because of their low expectations of getting government employment, or both, is
unclear.

IV. Medina Clashes

In late February 2009 a series of clashes between Shia
pilgrims and Saudi security forces, including members of the Commission for the
Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), occurred in the city of
Medina. At the time, schools were closed due to mid-term holidays, and many
children had accompanied their parents from the Shia areas around Qatif and
Ahsa' to Medina. Shia gathered on February 24 at the Baqi' cemetery, adjacent
to the mosque of the Prophet Muhammad, to commemorate the anniversary of the
Prophet's death. Al-Baqi' cemetery is believed to contain the graves of several
of the Prophet's wives, many of his companions, and four of his successors whom
the Shia recognize as rightful leaders of the Muslim community.

When Shia visit the tombs of venerated Islamic
personalities, they customarily recite special prayers and perform other
rituals, such as picking up a small quantity of earth from around the cemetery.
This goes against the teachings of Wahhabism: Shaikh Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab,
the 18th century preacher, underlined the centrality of monotheism
in Islam and thus considered practices like veneration of saints and special
holidays to be a form of idolatry. Prince Nayef, the Saudi interior minister,
said following the incidents at Baqi' cemetery that they involved people who
had gathered sand from tombs of companions of the Prophet Mohammed in defiance
of Wahhabi norms. He added, "Citizens in some parts of the kingdom who belong
to other sects .... should abide by this (Sunni doctrine)."[50]

Baqi'
cemetery events

On February 20, pilgrims at the Baqi' cemetery in Medina
clashed with religious police after seeing a person they suspected of being an
agent of the religious police filming women from an elevated position. Shia
pilgrims said they considered the filming of women an invasion of their
privacy.[51] One report indicated
pilgrims threw shoes and empty cans at security forces in reaction to the
filming.[52] An eyewitness told Human
Rights Watch that the security forces arrested five pilgrims.[53]

Reports that police had been filming women pilgrims led
thousands of Shia to protest at the cemetery on February 21.[54]
The authorities announced an investigation into the clashes and said that
Sunnis had also been arrested.[55] Further clashes between
security forces and pilgrims broke out that day. A video of the area shows
scores of pilgrims fleeing down a road, apparently from security officials in
uniform and plainclothes CPVPV officials, whom the video shows following them
closely; the security officials have sticks in their hand, but are not seen to
use them.[56] In an incident on
February 23, security forces reportedly shot with live ammunition and wounded
15-year-old Shia pilgrim Zaki Abdullah al-Hasani in the chest during clashes.[57]
Another disturbance took place when police barred women from visiting the area
reserved for them.[58] According to one
eyewitness, police used batons against the Shia crowd, and civilian onlookers
joined in beating the crowd of pilgrims. The eyewitness alleged that security
forces and the civilians who joined them injured ten Shia pilgrims, of whom
seven were minors.[59]

On February 24, clashes again erupted between Shia pilgrims
and CPVPV officials when security forces blocked access to Baqi' cemetery.[60]
One eyewitness told Human Rights Watch that the religious police attacked
pilgrims.[61] That day, an
unidentified man attacked a Shia religious scholar, Shaikh Jawad al-Hadhari
from Ahsa', at the entrance to the Prophet's mosque, stabbing him with a knife.
Shaikh al-Hadhari, whose clothes indicate that he is a Shia cleric, told Human
Rights Watch that his attacker, whom al-Hadhari took to be a civilian, shouted
"kill the rejectionist [Shia]" as he stabbed him. He said he continues to have
pain from the wound in his shoulder.[62]

On February 23 Prince Abd al-'Aziz bin Majid, the governor
of Medina, received a delegation of Shia elders. On February 27 he freed all
detainees of the Baqi' cemetery events under age 18 on orders of Prince Nayif.[63]
A large Shia delegation went to Riyadh and met with King Abdullah on March 3,
and on the following day the king issued an amnesty for all those detained
during the February Baqi' cemetery clashes.[64] On
March 14 the Interior Ministry claimed that it had arrested only nine people in
relation to violent clashes around al-Baqi' cemetery,[65]
but Shia sources said that at least 28 persons had been detained until the
king's amnesty.[66] A later report citing
officials clarified that of 71 persons arrested, 49 had been Shia and 22 Sunni.[67]

Despite news of Shaikh Jawad al-Hadari's stabbing and the
shooting of al-Hasani, the Interior Ministry claimed that there had been no
injuries.[68] According to al-Hadhari
and another Eastern Province Shia source, there has not been any investigation
of security officers who allegedly shot Zaki Abdullah al-Hasani (al-Hadhari is
from the same area in Ahsa' as al-Hasani).[69]
Regarding his own stabbing, al-Hadhari said that the police took a statement
which the Investigation and Public Prosecutions Bureau received, but that he is
unaware of any government investigation into bringing his attacker to justice.[70]

V. Arrests of Solidarity Protestors

The events in Medina were followed by demonstrations in the
Eastern Province cities of Qatif, Safwa, and 'Awwamiyya in solidarity with the pilgrims
at Baqi' cemetery. These demonstrations, which as reported to Human Rights
Watch mostly passed off peacefully, were nevertheless the occasion for further
arrests: information collected by Human Rights Watch shows that the authorities
arrested at least 25 persons in connection with a February 27, 2009
demonstration in Safwa and in anticipation of a demonstration planned for March
4. The authorities released most of them after a short while, but held four
persons for about two months without charge.

On March 8, security forces in the Eastern Province summoned
Shia religious leaders and congregants to try to extract pledges to refrain
from communal prayer, which some complied with, two Shia from that province
told Human Rights Watch.[71]This informal ban was defied by Shaikh Nimr
Baqir al-Nimr in 'Awwamiyya, who delivered a Friday sermon on March 13 that
reignited tensions and sparked a new round of arrests there. In his sermon
Shaikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr said he would urge the Shia to strive for secession
from Saudi Arabia if their dignity was not respected. "Our dignity is more
precious than the unity of the land," he told his audience of around 200
persons, a participant told Human Rights Watch.[72]
Over the following 10 days the authorities twice cut off electricity to
'Awwamiyya, the first time on the night of the sermon, and began to erect
mobile checkpoints. At one point, 11 buses filled with riot police entered the
town.[73] On March 19, security
forces came to arrest Shaikh al-Nimr, but he had gone into hiding. Residents of
'Awwamiyya held a peaceful local protest without security forces present,
although a participant said that after the protest he heard that isolated
clashes between security forces and residents took place.[74]
Residents also took to the roofs, chanting "God is great." Following the
protest and the clashes, the police began arresting residents. Human Rights
Watch has documented 22 arrests from 'Awwamiyya,[75]
of whom 18 were held for three months without trial before being released on
July 1 (it is unclear how long the other four were detained). At this writing,
another detainee not from 'Awwamiyya but arrested in connection with protests
there, Kamil al-Ahmad, a Shia political activist with a history of arrests,
remains in detention at the intelligence detention center in Dammam to which he
was transferred on June 1.[76] One 'Awwamiyya resident
released earlier told Human Rights Watch that they had received good treatment
in prison.[77]

Of those arrested in connection with the Safwa
demonstrations, eight were minors: Sajjad Ali al-Subaiti, age 15, Adnan
Muhammad Al 'Arif, 15, Muhammad Ali al-Safwani, 14, Hasan Muhammad al-Sadiq,
14, and Qasim Muhammad Al Musa, 14, who were detained for up to three weeks,
and Abdullah Muhammad al-Khalaf, 15, Mustafa Muhammad al-Fardan, 15, and Ahmad
Muhammad al-Musawi, 16, who were detained for two months. In addition at least
two children were arrested following the sermon by al-Nimr in 'Awwamiyya in
March: Ali Ahmad al-Faraj, 16, and Amin Husain al-Faraj, 17; they remained in
detention for three months.[78] On May 27, 2009, the
police in Safwa reportedly summoned six minors who had been released earlier on
bail from a juvenile detention home, in preparation for trial.[79]
It is unclear whether a trial took place, or is still in prospect.

Saudi executive authorities at times issue sentences without
trial, or judicial authorities issue verdicts without trials in person.[80]
Both are in violation of Saudi law.[81] Tawfiq al-Saif, a
prominent Shia intellectual, told Human Rights Watch in August 2009 that he is
unaware of any trials of persons released after being arrested over the clashes
in Medina or protests in Safwa and 'Awwamiyya, but that some released from
Medina had to sign "routine" papers to close their files.[82]
A Shia in the Eastern Province who has collected information on arrests of Shia
in the aftermath of the Baqi' events by meeting or speaking to the families
involved told Human Rights Watch on June 24 that Murtada al-Arbash had been
summoned a few days earlier to come to the police station where he was informed
he had been convicted in his absence for his role in the events at the Baqi'
cemetery, and was forced by the police to sign his sentence, which was a prison
term of 15 years and lashes. Abdullah Matrud, another freed detainee, also
reportedly received a summons at the same time to receive a sentence, but did
not obey it.[83] The Saudi Shia news
website Rasid reported that execution of the sentences was suspended.[84]

VI. Mosque
Closures and Arrest of Religious Leaders

At the same time that the attention of many Saudi Shia was
focused on effecting the release of their coreligionists arrested in Medina,
Safwa, and 'Awwamiyya, Saudi authorities intensified their campaign to close
Shia mosques and to arrest Shia religious leaders. Saudi authorities have
closed three Shia prayer buildings that are not officially mosques. In both
Khobar and Ahsa' the authorities have arrested scores of Shia religious
leaders.

As noted in the previous chapter, in March 2009, after the
Baqi' cemetery events, authorities effectively attempted to impose a ban on
communal Shia prayers.

Khobar

On July 1, 2009, the authorities released one of the prayer
leaders from Khobar, Abdullah Muhanna, from that city's general prison. They
had arrested him on May 25 for refusing to sign a pledge to close the private
prayer building adjacent to his house, to which Shia came to perform communal
prayers. On July 15 police in Riyadh arrested another Khobar prayer leader,
Zuhair Bu-Salih, in order to pressure his father, Husain, to sign a pledge to
stop holding communal prayers in Khobar's al-Thuqba Shia prayer hall, which he
runs.[85] There are no Shia
mosques in Khobar, despite having a sizeable Shia population. A member of
Muhanna's family told Human Rights Watch while his relative was still in
detention, "My neighbor is building a mosque right now, with permission. He is
Sunni. We Shia have no mosques, and now they want to prohibit us from praying
in our house."[86] Also in Khobar, the
authorities in mid-May 2009 threatened leaders of the Ismailis with closure of
their only mosque there, which is 17 years old.[87]

Saudi authorities in June 2008 had closed three Shia private
prayer buildings in Khobar, some in existence for 30 years, on orders of the
Eastern Province governorate after briefly arresting their owners and some Shia
who frequented them. Following appeals to Crown Prince Sultan, however, the
governorate had allowed them to reopen in November 2008.

Ahsa'

In the southern part of the Eastern Province, Ahsa', the
authorities have for years arrested Shia prayer leaders and pressured Shia to
close private facilities providing community services, be they religious or
cultural in nature.[88]

Between roughly 2001 and 2002 (1421 and 1423 hijri),
local governors in the Eastern Province punished at least 60 Shia with
extrajudicial sentences of one week to one month in prison for allowing
religious recitation in their house or other worship-related activities. In
2004, 14 Shia received such treatment.[89] So far
in 2009 the executive authorities have detained 20 Shia from Ahsa' for periods
ranging between one week and one month: 15 of these were detained for holding
private religious gatherings, and three for selling articles used in Shia
religious ceremonies, such as clothing for `Ashura' or confectionery for
Qarqi'un. The remaining two were detained for having signs with religious
symbols; one of them is Shaikh Husain al-Hababi, who spent a week in prison in
May for putting up a sign welcoming home Shaikh Jawad al-Hadhari, the Shia
scholar who had been stabbed during the incidents at the Baqi' cemetery in
Medina in February (see chapter IV).

VII. Relevant International
Standards

International law prohibits discrimination on the basis of
religion and protects the rights of religious and other minorities. The most
important international human rights treaties that spell out the meaning and
extent of these prohibitions and protections include the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD),[90] the
Convention against Discrimination in Education,[91] and
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).[92] In
addition, the United Nations has passed declarations that articulate human
rights standards and best practices in matters of discrimination. These are the
United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Declaration on the Elimination of All
Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981),[93] the
UNGA Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic,
Religious or Linguistic Minorities (1993),[94]
and the UNESCO Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice (1978).[95]

The 1978 UNESCO declaration declares "[a]ny distinction,
exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, ethnic or national
origin or religious intolerance motivated by racist considerations" to be
incompatible with human rights.[96]
The Convention against Discrimination in Education, in article 1, also includes
religious factors among prohibited discrimination. The UN Declaration on the
Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion
or Belief declares that "discrimination between human beings on the grounds of
religion or belief constitutes an affront to human dignity."[97]

The prohibition against discrimination applies to the
enjoyment of all fundamental rights, including the rights to development, work,
and access to justice. States are bound to guarantee equal access for everyone
to "[e]conomic, social and cultural rights, in particular: (i) The rights to
work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work,
to protection against unemployment, to equal pay for equal work, [and] to just
and favourable remuneration."[98]

Equally, law enforcement and judicial officials must not
discriminate between persons on the basis of their ethnic origin, and the state
is bound to guarantee "the right to equal treatment before the tribunals and
all other organs administering justice; [and the] right to security of person
and protection by the State against violence or bodily harm, whether inflicted
by government officials or by any individual group or institution."[99]

The prohibition against racist laws, policies, and acts
obliges states to take preventive and remedial action against racism. According
to the UNGA's 1993 declaration, states are obliged to protect minorities, such
as the Shia, by taking "measures to create favourable conditions to enable
persons belonging to minorities to express their characteristics and to develop
their culture, language, religion, traditions and customs."[100]

The 1993 declaration also says that states must protect the
identity of minorities "within their respective territories" by encouraging
"conditions for the promotion of that identity" and measures allowing minority
members to "participate fully in the economic progress and development in their
country."[101]
The Convention on the Rights of the Child specifically requires the education
of a child to be directed to the "development of ... his or her own cultural
identity, language and values" and gives a child of a religious minority the
right "to enjoy his or her own culture, [and] to profess and practise his or
her own religion."[102]
The 1981 UNGA declaration states that, in education, a child "shall not be compelled
to receive teaching on religion or belief against the wishes of his parents."[103]

In the 1981 UNGA declaration, the "freedom to have a
religion ... and freedom ... to manifest his religion or belief in worship,
observance, practice and teaching" is protected, and "coercion which would
impair [t]his freedom" is prohibited.[104]
More specifically, assembly for worship, observance of religious holidays,
maintaining and erecting buildings for worship, acquiring items for use in
religious rituals, religious teaching and appointment of religious leaders,
fundraising for religion, and communication with coreligionists are activities
that fall within the protection of freedom of religion.[105]

The state's obligations go beyond not preventing religious
minorities from exercising their rights. The ICERD is clear that states must
not "undertake to sponsor, defend or support racial discrimination by any
persons or organizations," and states must "condemn all propaganda and all
organizations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race
or group of persons of one colour or one ethnic origin."[106] The
UNGA's states must especially "not permit public authorities or public
institutions, national or local, to promote or incite racial discrimination,"
and prosecute any individual who does so. Furthermore, states should
"encourage, where appropriate, integrationist multiracial organizations and
movements," and "establish and maintain appropriate charitable or humanitarian
institutions."[107]

International law not only protects the identity of
minorities and prohibits discrimination, but guarantees the rights of
minorities to actively participate in the public and cultural life of society,
including by "maintain[ing] their own associations."[108]
Minorities have "the right to participate effectively in decisions on the
national and, where appropriate, regional level concerning the minority."[109]

Acknowledgments

Christoph Wilcke of the Middle East and North Africa
Division of Human Rights Watch is the principal researcher and author of this
report. Eric Goldstein, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa
Division, and Ian Gorvin, senior program officer in the Program Office, edited
the report. Clive Baldwin, senior legal advisor, provided legal review. Amr
Khairy, Arabic language website and translation coordinator, provided
assistance with translation into Arabic. Brent Giannotta and Nadia Barhoum,
associates for the Middle East and North Africa Division, prepared this report
for publication. Additional production assistance was provided by Grace Choi,
publications director, and Fitzroy Hepkins, mail manager.

We would like to thank those Saudi Shia who spoke to Human
Rights Watch in February and March 2009 during the arrests of protestors, as
well as the Saudi human rights activists who provided detailed information and
updates on names of detainees, on the closure of Shia prayer halls, and on the
arrest of religious leaders.

[1]Guido
Steinberg, "The Shiites in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (al-Ahas),
1913-1953," in Rainer Brunner and Werner Ende, eds., The Twelver Shia in
Modern Times. Religious Culture and Political History (Cologne: Brill,
2001), p. 237.

[3]
Steinberg, "The Shiites in the Eastern Province," p. 248. King Abd al-'Aziz
agreed to demands by the Ikhwan in 1927 to force the Shia to convert to
"Islam," to close all mosques and husseiniyyas of the Shia, and to prohibit
public religious ceremonies.

[11]
Human Rights Watch interviews with Hamza al-Hasan, Ja'far al-Shayib, and Sadiq
Jubran, who were part of the Saudi Shia émigré opposition at the time, in
London, March 2008, Qatif, Eastern Province, February 2006, and Hofuf, Eastern
Province, February 2006, respectively.

[13]
Human Rights Watch/Middle East, Routine Abuse, Routine Denial. Civil Rights
and the Political Crisis in Bahrain, June 1997,
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/1997/07/01/routine-abuse-routine-denial; and
Human Rights Watch interview with two Saudi Shia men, Qatif, February 2006. The
men from the Eastern Province were arrested in Bahrain, handed over to Saudi
authorities, and severely beaten in Saudi custody in 1995.

[14]
Human Rights Watch interviews with family members of two detainees, Dammam and
Qatif, December 18, 2006. See also Human Rights Watch, Precarious Justice,
Arbitrary Detention and Unfair Trials in the Deficient Criminal Justice
System of Saudi Arabia, vol. 20, no. 3(E), March 24, 2008,
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/03/24/precarious-justice-0, pp. 125-128. The
involvement of Shia militants in the Khobar attacks has been questioned. See
Gareth Porter, "Investigating Khobar Towers: How a Saudi Deception Protected
bin Laden," Inter Press Service,
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47312 (accessed July 4, 2009).

[22]
Scott Wilson, "Shiites See an Opening in Saudi Arabia. Municipal Vote in East
Could Give Suppressed Minority Small Measure of Power," Washington Post,
February 28, 2005,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58262-2005Feb27.html (accessed
August 3, 2009).

[23]
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, The General Presidency of the Department for
Scientific Research, Fatwas, Missionary Activity, and Guidance of the General
Secretariat of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, "Fatwa No 15532," May
15, 1993. Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[26]
Human Rights Watch interview with Husam, an Ismaili, Riyadh, February 25, 2006.
The Ismailis are a distinct branch of Shiism. In Saudi Arabia they live
predominantly in Najran province, on the border with Yemen.

[36]
Human Rights Watch has documented similar cases in regards to the Ismaili
religious minority in Saudi Arabia-see Human Rights Watch, The Isma'ilis of
Najran, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/09/22/ismailis-najran-0 , pp.
76-78. Human Rights Watch conversations with Saudi businessmen, members of the
Shura Council, the appointed parliament, and human rights officials reveal
their acute awareness of discrimination against Shia, coupled with a sense that
this topic remains taboo and does not warrant political attention.

[38]
Ministerial Decree 6194 based on the Royal Instruction 1828/Mim/Ba of June 23,
2004, "Executive Regulation for the Work of the Judge of Endowments and
Inheritances and Notary Office [اللائحة
التنفيذية
لعمل قاضي
الاوقاف والمواريث
و هيئة
التدقيق],", August 20, 2005, regulating the authority of the "Judge of
the Court of Endowments and Inheritances" (a.k.a. the Shia court), arts. 10-14.
Copy on file with Human Rights Watch.

[42]
For the issue of intolerant statements against the Ismailis, see Human Rights
Watch, The Ismailis of Najran, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/09/22/ismailis-najran-0.

[43]
"Shaikh Tawfiq al-'Amir Calls on the Government to Take Our Rights From Them,"
Al-Ahsa Cultural Forum, June 15, 2008,
http://www.alhsa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93328 (accessed August 3, 2009).
"Freedom for Shaikh Tawfiq al-'Amir From Ahsa'," Human Rights First in Saudi
Arabia urgent appeal, June 23, 2008, http://www.anhri.net/saudi/spdhr/2008/pr0623.shtml
(accessed August 3, 2009). The statement of 22 Saudi Wahhabi clerics can be
found at
http://www.islamlight.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=9770&Itemid=33
(accessed August 3, 2009). Ibn Jibrin, who died on July 13, 2009, was a
government-appointed member of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars (see
also chapter II, footnote 23, above)

[44]
The officials work as preachers, academics, teachers, religious police
officers, senior government clerics, judicial officers, and medical administrators.
Information on the background of the signatories compiled by Haitham, an
Eastern Province Shia, August 8, 2009, at Human Rights Watch's request.

[46]Shaikh 'Adil al-Kalbani, the government appointed imam of the
Grand Mosque in Mekka, in a May 4, 2009 BBC Arabic television interview called
Shia religious scholars "unbelievers," causing particular ire among the Shia,
who demanded an apology. The mosque is revered as a holy site by Muslims of all
creeds and its imam is one of the highest official religious authorities in the
kingdom. Human Rights Watch email communication with Siddiq, an Eastern
Province Shia, May 19, 2009. A recording of the BBC program, with a third,
overdubbed voice by an unseen speaker in addition to Shaikh 'Adil's and that of
the BBC presenter, was previously at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svbgrydP0FQ, and was viewed in the course of
researching this report, but at this writing is no longer available.

[47]
Human Rights Watch interview with journalists accompanying King Abdullah, New
York, November 10-11, 2008. In June 2008 the Muslim World League, at King
Abdullah's initiative, held an interfaith meeting in Mekka, in which Saudi Shia
participated. Shaikh Hasan al-Saffar, the spiritual leader of Saudi Shia, also
participated in an interfaith conference convened at King Abdullah's initiative
in Madrid in July 2008. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Maytham
al-Fardan, aide to Shaikh Hasan al-Saffar, August 5, 2009.

[49]
Saudi Arabia does not have a system of military conscription. See US State
Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, "International
Religious Freedom Report – 2008: Saudi Arabia,"
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2008/108492.htm; and Human Rights Watch
telephone interview with Tawfiq Saif (who participated in the meeting with
Prince Khalid), August 5, 2009.

[51]
Footage taken apparently with a cellphone shows a hand holding what appears to
be a videocamera from behind a wall on a first floor roof of the outer wall of
al-Baqi' mosque. On this footage, screams from women pilgrims and commotion
among the crowd of women and children pilgrims can be heard, and they are seen
pointing at the videocamera. The footage was previously available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4qlLEs-LiA, and was viewed in the course of
researching this report, but at this writing is no longer available.

[53]
Human Rights Watch email communication with Husain, an Eastern Province Shia,
February 26, 2009. This was also reported in the media-see Ziyadi, "Crowd of
Women and Young Men Blocks Flow of Those Who Pray at the Prophet's Mosque [حشد
من الشباب
والنساء
يعيقون تدفق
المصلين للمسجد
النبوي]," Al-Riyadh, http://www.alriyadh.com/2009/02/21/article411281.html.

[54]
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-AYF9mkuno (accessed August 19, 2009). This
undated video appears to show a crowd of men, women, and children outside a
mosque after dark, with a phalanx of security officials wearing helmets and
holding plastic shields gathered at an entrance door. The crowd chants slogans
extolling the Prophet Muhammad and Shia Imam Husain, but is peaceful and the
security forces are calm.

[56]
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAaEM8Q8pRU (accessed August 19, 2009). This
undated video appears to show dozens of men, women, and some children running
along a street in apparent flight, followed by security officials and some
persons among the officials wearing clothing typical of religiously observant
Saudis, including the religious police. In a second undated video, filmed from
a different vantage point but apparently showing the same incident, a security
official chasing down the street with a drawn stick can be seen pushing a woman
aside. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6lDZnl7Rjs (accessed August 19,
2009).

[60]
See http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Oct7fouNGsY (accessed August 19,
2009). This undated video shows children at first cautiously, then more daringly,
then en masse, approach from a crowd about 20 meters away in what appears to be
the Baqi' cemetery area toward an opening in the pavement with a mud brick wall
around it, dive into the hole, pick up some earth, and dash back to the crowd.

[71]
Human Rights Watch email communication from Muhammad, an Eastern Province Shia,
March 18; and from Zaid, an Eastern Province Shia, June 5, 2009, containing a
statement by Sayid Muhammad Baqir Nasir, one of those summoned in Khobar, dated
May 28, 2009.

[72]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Muhammad, an Eastern Province Shia,
June 24, 2009. The sermon is available on YouTube at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdPC8KJN00U (accessed July 1, 2009).

[76]
"Releasing the Bulk of Prisoners From Awamia, But What about Kamel Alahmad?" Human
Rights First in Saudi Arabia news release, July 1, 2009; and Human Rights Watch
email correspondence with Ali Al Ahmad, director, Gulf Institute, and the
brother of Kamil, August 5, 2009.

[80]
Executive authorities reportedly have issued sentences for persons held by the
intelligence forces. Human Rights Watch interviews with former detainees and
with families of detainees, December 2006. Executive authorities also issue
sentences following adjudication of guilt by judicial authorities, especially
in drugs and weapons cases. Human Rights Watch interviews with two former
prisoners, Riyadh and Damman, December 2006. Their verdicts specified that
sentencing is "up to the ruler."

[95]
Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1982/2/Add.1, annex V
(1982). Adopted and proclaimed by the General Conference of the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization at its twentieth session, on
27 November 1978.